I learned something today. While reading a story about noted Canadian Anchor Baby Ted Cruz, and his comic performance art piece "Running for President," I learned that, apparently, it matters not at all where a potential presidential candidate is born so long as they are a citizen at birth. You know, for instance, if they had been born in Kenya to an American mother, that would in no way disqualify them from being president. Rare that I find out I completely misunderstood a portion of Federal law, just thought I'd share with the masses.

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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

Yes, yes, hypocritical, etc, but really I had thought the interpretation was was one had to be born on some sort of US soil, a military base or embassy, etc. Not, born in another country, live their for years, etc.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

I was mainly aware of this since Flea's father was made a US citizen before returning to Peru and having his kids so she's a natural born US citizen despite having been born in Lima. Not that I checked her presidential credentials but I assume she'd be eligible.

I'm too lazy to look it up but the birthers were clinging to some law change in the 60's that they said would have made Obama ineligible (supposedly born overseas) despite the citizenship of his mother. I'm sure Gbaji could tell you; he's been studying up on it in preparation for the Supreme Court case.

Yes, yes, hypocritical, etc, but really I had thought the interpretation was was one had to be born on some sort of US soil, a military base or embassy, etc. Not, born in another country, live their for years, etc.

The requirement is that they be a "natural-born citizen," meaning they need to be a citizen at birth and, thus, have never been an alien. That means they were either born on US soil, or are the child of US citizens.

The idea that they need to be on US soil is historically absurd. Expansion into the western regions of the continent were significant at the time, and far outpaced the rate at which the government was including that land in their territorial boundaries (the government often being intentionally restrictive so they didn't reignite the French and Indian War conflicts). They also didn't wish to extend their territory too arbitrarily outward, because they didn't want to have to deal with the repercussions of native citizens (which they later addressed by... not affording them the rights of citizenship, while still considering them citizens under their domain).

Elinda wrote:

How could that be though?

Scheduling births is like scheduling the weather. If an American woman happens to be on foreign soil when the babe decides to drop out we can't simply deny the kid citizenship.

Or, what if an American woman is having lunch at the french embassy with a friend when she has her baby. Would or could the kid be French?

If you want to stretch the idea, it's not TOO weird, barring the fact that the US was tiny at the time relative to the spread of its own citizens noted above. If a woman was sailing to a foreign nation, she probably wouldn't be coming back for some time. And it might be held that her child would be culturally French (or whatever) by the time they returned.

As for the reason for it, it's because the US was extremely insular in the early years after the revolution. The leading party was wary of the French influence on the Democratic-Republican rivals, and the Democratic-Republicans were deeply concerned by the heavy English influence on the Whigs. Culture war led to an anti-foreigner agreement from both parties (restricted to the other influence, but unified in a general legislative compromise).

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Scheduling births is like scheduling the weather. If an American woman happens to be on foreign soil when the babe decides to drop out we can't simply deny the kid citizenship.

We don't. At least not "simply". The only case in which that can happen is if only one parent is a US citizen, and that parent is too young. I don't remember the exact cut off, but in order to pass natural born citizenship off to a child not born in the US, at least one parent has to have lived for a specific number of years as an adult (adult in this case not necessarily starting at age 18 though) in the US. The assumption being that a US citizen child (for example) who grows up in say France her entire life, and then has a child, that child would have little connection/loyalty to the US because it's never lived there and it's mother never lived there as an adult and thus has limited ability to pass on the culture, ideas, etc to the child.

Why this applied in Obama's case is that his father was not a US citizen, and his mother was too young to pass it on. Where he was physically born actually mattered in his case. I'm not sure how old Cruz's parents were, so I'm not sure if this case applies at all.

I'll also point out that the need to be a "natural born citizen" only matters for the purpose of presidential qualification. The child can still be a US citizen (just apply for a social security number like everyone else and you're done). Just not a "natural born" citizen. The point is that we place a higher requirement on the person who holds the greatest amount of direct executive power in our nation. There's a need to ensure that this person does not have divided loyalties, and that he will not put another nations interests ahead of the US.

Yes, yes, hypocritical, etc, but really I had thought the interpretation was was one had to be born on some sort of US soil, a military base or embassy, etc. Not, born in another country, live their for years, etc.

The requirement is that they be a "natural-born citizen," meaning they need to be a citizen at birth and, thus, have never been an alien. That means they were either born on US soil, or are the child of US citizens.

At the risk of repeating myself, the requirement only applies to people who want to be President of the US. So not really unreasonable or absurd at all.

Those aren't birther arguments Joph. That's what the law says. It says that whether some group uses it to question Obama's qualifications to be president or not. It says it whether the person in question is a Republican or a Democrat. Remember just this week when I talked about how liberals tend to be ends oriented? This is one of those times. You care about the outcome more than the method of getting there.